Harry Potter

Daniel Radcliffe Says His Acting in Harry Potter Was “Very One-Note”

Daniel Radcliffe continues to be bumbling, self-effacing, and completely charming, in a Your Best Friend’s Younger Brother sort of way. Ever modest, Radcliffe—now promoting the romantic comedy What If—has revealed that he is not exactly thrilled about his performance in the Harry Potter films that propelled him to fame.

“Doing Potter was an incredible blessing because it gave me this opportunity to start a fantastic career,” Radcliffe told the Mail on Sunday. “But then the moments I’m not as proud of, mistakes other actors get to make in rehearsal rooms or at drama school, are all on film for everyone to see.”

Ultimately, this doesn’t seem too strange, right? If you had been regularly captured on film throughout your tween and teenage years, you probably wouldn’t feel so great about watching that footage now, let alone knowing that millions of people have, and will continue to, see it. Hell, it’s bad enough re-reading an e-mail you sent last week after one glass of wine.

There is one film of the eight, in particular, though, that really makes Radcliffe squirm: “. . . It’s hard to watch a film like Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince, because I’m just not very good in it. I hate it,” he said. “My acting is very one-note and I can see I got complacent and what I was trying to do just didn’t come across.”

Daniel! Don’t you just want to pour him a glass of lemonade and prepare him some ginger snap cookies and tell him he’s great in the Harry Potter films and totally captivating in all of them and you’ve actually watched the sixth one twice (you fell asleep half-way through during the second viewing, but you won’t tell him that). And then you’ll wait until he seems in slightly better spirits before asking what Emma Watson’s “really like, in person . . . like, is she real nice or fake nice?!” (c’mon, you’re only human).

Josh DuboffJosh Duboff is a VF.com staff writer, based in New York, who covers entertainment and culture.